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To have the characters interact I decided the penguin would be like a pet to the zombie, he would be holding it, throws it up into the air and it would fly away… who cares if penguins can’t fly… this one does!

I started off by posing out a few shots:

Started by animating the movement of the zombie’s arms to look as if they are throwing an object up into the air…

I also thought there should be a little interaction between them, apart from the throwing, so they look at each other with the penguin copying the zombies movement…

The penguin had to be animated to resemble that of a flying creature, as the flippers come down the body will go upwards and as they open up the body will drop, below is the movement of the body and flippers…

head movement…

another viewpoint that will be needed later…

As the zombie throws the penguin I wanted to create a point where the penguin bounces in the zombies hands, this occurs when the penguin is still falling down but his hands have started to move upwards into the throw…

Firstly I had to model a chair for the zombie to sit in, also added in a lamp and posed the character out in a few different positions, I plan to have him asleep in the chair, eventually waking himself up and standing up slowly as he is still relatively tired…

Once I had the main movement of the zombie done, I introduced the penguin into the scene…

It may not be standing up from a seated position but I still found this video useful when animating my zombie’s movement…

The animation interacts with the animator:

I began by positioning the zombie in a seated position asleep, he wakes himself up and then moves – in anticipation – preparing to stand…

The character then had to slide forward in the seat slightly before he pushes himself up out of the chair…

and he’s up out of the chair, as he slides forward his feet move backwards in preparation to stand…

side view of the movement…

something has went wrong with the right arm rotations as the hand is now starting to twitch so I’ll have to go and fix that…

Hand twitching has been resolved along with the fingers… they no longer go through the chair…

A little camera movement added as he stands up…

I then decided that I wanted a reason for the zombie waking up and standing to then have a look around so I introduced the penguin rig to the scenario, the penguin moves fast compared to the zombie who has just been awoken…

animating the penguin sneak, I wanted to make it look like he was sneaking along the edge of the chair so there is a slight delay in the head following the body…

The finished penguin movement…

I then thought the zombie was lying just a little too still in the chair so I added a bit of subtle movement…

Mockumentaries are known for adopting the aesthetics of a documentary in order to give the appearance of a traditional documentary. It should be created with a playful intent and not have the aim of deceiving viewers into believing false information.

A good example is Surf’s Up (sony animation)

Surf’s Up displays multiple styles used throughout a documentary including:

handheld cameras

camera shakes

unmediated reality: quick zooms and abrupt movements, giving the sense of live and unplanned/unscripted action.

talking head interviews

photographic stills

news feeds of the competition

mock archival footage

The penguins have been created with human like features/personalties e.g.. holding a competition, surfing… Paul Lassaine, production designer wanted to avoid a photorealistic approach to the movie (similar to March of the Penguins, released 2 years before.)

These documentary aesthetics provide a different approach to storytelling, making the narrative much more interesting setting it apart from a ‘normal’ film however it still portrays the traditional storyline of an outcast giving up a dream of glory for love meanwhile conveying the message that winning isn’t everything. Using this style of narrative set it apart form the penguin centred films that were real eased around a similar time such as Happy Feet, Madagascar and March of the Penguins. It is apparent that the penguin could be considered the new ‘bambi’ of the animation world.

We also have an Orca character in our animation which appears twice, the first time as a shadow below the ice and the second time the whale will surface in the hole left after the ice berg collapses…

Some sketches looking at how the whale would move for the shadow scene.. they don’t move side to side but instead their tails have an up and down motion, so there won’t be much animation needed for the whale…

some maya attempts:

A few different approaches were applied to trying to gain a shadow effect of the whale under the ice but in the end Hannah T sent me her design for the whale allowing me to create a transparent texture using photoshop’s alpha channels

From there Hannah parented a spot light to the whale in the set file allowing for a shadow to be created on the ice plane!